Wild theories fill void left by missing Malaysian plane
Shot down by a military jet. Blown up by terrorists. Hijacked by elves.
Ranging from the barely believable to the wildly absurd, popular theories about the fate of a missing Malaysian airliner circulate widely even as anguished relatives wait for news of its 239 passengers and crew.
Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing vanished early on Saturday and a huge search by ships and aircraft from 10 nations has yet to find a trace of it. While they still cannot rule out a hijacking or bomb, officials seem increasingly sceptical that foul play caused its disappearance.
related:
Hunt for missing jet widens to distant waters
Malaysia not sure which way lost jet was headed
Malaysia: No engine data after plane went missing
Investigators Skeptical Missing Plane Was Targeted
Pilots of missing Malaysian plane under scrutiny
IAF aircraft on standby for Malaysian plane search operations
Missing Malaysian plane: Suspect passengers had 'Asian features'
US suspects missing Malaysian plane flew on for hours: Report
Massive multinational search operation on to locate missing Malaysian plane
Indian Navy joins search for missing Malaysian plane in the Malacca Straits
A nervous Asia eyes robust Chinese response to missing Malaysian plane
read more
Malaysia Airlines mystery is one of the most bizarre incidents in modern air travel
Flight MH370 may not have even crashed
As the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stretches on with still virtually no reliable clues to work with, what began as a bizarre incident is beginning to look even stranger still. Commercial airliners have gone missing before, but only until their wreckage was found. MH370 seems literally to have vanished into thin air. But how could that happen? And what does it mean for a plane to disappear, anyway?
The shock generated by the Boeing 777 mystery is largely a product of how much we’ve come to take for granted the modern superabundance of information. We expect to know where everything is, all the time. If you log on to a flight-tracking website, you can punch in the flight number of any commercial aircraft and see its current location and direction. Seems pretty foolproof.
And indeed, in most cases, airplanes are constantly connected into the global information network by multiple mutually redundant forms of surveillance and communication. There’s very little uncertainty — which is how air traffic controllers like it, since streams of large metal objects moving at hundreds of miles per hour don’t do well moving randomly around the sky.
related:
Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 - a week of confusion
Authorities in Kuala Lumpur admit they are not pursuing any leads in the disappearance of MH370 despite a massive search involving ships and planes from 12 countries.
After searching in the area of the South China Sea, authorities say nothing had come of Chinese satellite images. Malaysia says Chinese officials had told them that "the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris".
Malaysian officials say they had expanded the search into the Andaman Sea, the part of the Indian Ocean northwest of the Malacca Strait
related:
Talk
of MAS’s Future Will Have To Wait Till Missing MH370 Is Found
All attention is on MH370. Malaysians are standing as one, all locked in prayer for all on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that they would be found and they would be alive. The nation is hoping for a miracle.
Since Saturday morning when news of the missing MH370 was out, all other matters that had been circulated in the social media and front paged in the mainstream media seem so distant. There was no time to think about the haze, the drought, the water rationing, the religious squabbling, and the sentencing of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
Nothing
else seemed more important that the people on board MH370. Rescuers
are working round the clock, families of the 239 people on board the
flight are waiting in anticipation, media scouring for any little bit
of information that may be of help in locating MAS MH370.
Diverted
Malaysian Plane's Most Likely Last Position
The
weeklong search for a missing passenger
jet shifted
toward the Indian Ocean as Malaysia’s prime minister agreed with
investigators that the aircraft was intentionally diverted.
Satellite transmissions that weren’t
turned off along with other systems showed Malaysian Airline Flight
370 operated for almost seven hours after last making contact with
air traffic controllers on March 8, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib
Razak said yesterday. That may have taken the Boeing Co. 777-200 near
the limits of its fuel load if it was airborne the whole period.
The movements of the plane, which
veered off its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing course and flew back across
the Malaysian peninsula before disappearing, were “consistent with
deliberate action by someone on the plane,” Najib said.
related:
Missing
Malaysian Jet Said Tracked to Ocean Off Australia
The
last satellite transmission from a Malaysian airliner missing for a
week has been traced to the Indian Ocean off Australia,
far from where searches have taken place, according to a person
familiar with the analysis.
A
path from Malaysia to
the ocean off Australia would have taken as much as 3,000 miles,
about the maximum distance the Boeing
Co. (BA) 777-200
could have flown with its fuel load.
Flight
370 may have flown beyond its last known position about 1,000 miles
west of Perth, and that location may not be an indication of where
the plane ended up, said the person, who spoke on condition of not
being named because of the sensitivity of the information.
related:
Home of pilot of missing Malaysian flight MH370 searched
Police are searching the house of the pilot of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, a senior Malaysian Police official has said.
In a further twist it has also emerged the communications systems were deliberately disabled, according to Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak.
He said satellite and radar evidence show the plane changed course and could have continued flying for a further seven hours.
Crew
dunnit? - Plane flew for 7hrs as trackers disabled
Shah's expensive
flight simulator
COPS last night
searched the home of the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane
after it emerged someone DELIBERATELY turned off the jet’s
trackers.
Zaharie Shah, 53,
was in charge of Flight MH370 when it changed course and flew on for
up to seven-and-a-half hours.
Officers yesterday
also visited the nearby home of his co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27,
in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 pilots lauded for strong ties to the community
Pilots
Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and Fariq Abdul Hamid were described as
respectable, community-minded men
One
was passionate enough about flying to build his own flight simulator
in his home. The other was a 27-year-old contemplating marriage after
having just graduated to the cockpit of a Boeing 777.
As
speculation intensified Friday that the missing Malaysia Airlines
plane might have been commandeered by someone with aviation skills, a
picture began to emerge of the two pilots.
Police
have said they are looking at their psychological background, their
family life and connections as a line of inquiry into what happened
to Flight MH370, which vanished early March 8 while en route from
Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There is no evidence linking them to any
wrongdoing.
related:
MH370: KLIA 'bomoh' stunt spawns parodies
Religious
authorities taking steps to stop bomoh performing ‘rituals’ at
KLIA
The ritual, which invovled bamboo 'binoculars' and a fish trap, was performed at the entrance and managed to draw a crowd of curious onlookers.
According to Ibrahim, who holds the title of Datuk Mahaguru, the missing MH370 has been hijacked by elves and is currently suspended in mid-air or has crashed into the ocean.
related:
Investigators focus on foul play behind missing plane - sources
Malaysian: Investigators conclude flight hijacked
Missing plane: Piracy theory gains more credence
Malaysia
denies hiring shaman
Malaysia,
under fire over its fruitless search for a missing airliner, has
denied it has hired a prominent Muslim shaman to stage bizarre
rituals seeking divine guidance in the hunt.
An
official religious watchdog in the Muslim-majority country also said
it was sending personnel to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)
to prevent further occurrences.
The rituals, captured in photos and
videos that went viral and sparked ridicule for adding a farcical
element to the grave situation, were staged this week by
self-described faith healer Ibrahim Mat Zin.
Malaysia denies asking shaman for bizarre rituals
People prepare to release a sky lantern during a candlelight vigil for passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. AP
Malaysia, under fire over its fruitless search for a missing airliner, on Friday denied that it had hired a prominent Muslim shaman to stage bizarre rituals seeking divine guidance in the hunt.
An official religious watchdog in the Muslim-majority country also said it was sending personnel to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) to prevent further occurrences. The rituals, captured in photos and videos that went viral and sparked ridicule for adding a farcical element to the grave situation, were staged this week by self-described faith healer Ibrahim Mat Zin.
With
satellites unsuccessful in plane search, Malaysian shaman tries
coconuts
Ibrahim
Mat Zin (C), a local well-known “bomoh” (shaman), holds two
coconuts as he performs a ritual to help finding the missing Malaysia
Airlines MH370 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport March 12, 2014.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
You know things have
gotten pretty desperate when the “witch doctors” arrive to lend a
hand.
Which is exactly
what happened Wednesday afternoon in the international quest to find
missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
A portly “bomoh”
— shaman — who calls himself the “Raja Bomoh Sedunia Nujum VIP”
arrived at the Kuala Lumpur airport yesterday clutching a bevy of
talismans: vases, fiddles, and coconuts. The VIP Bomoh claimed he’d
been dispatched by Malaysian authorities to summon the location of
the missing jetliner from the ether. (No success yet.)
Pilot
in another plane: I established contact with plane
A BOEING 777 pilot, who was flying 30 minutes ahead of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft, said he established contact with MH370 minutes after he was asked to do so by Vietnamese air traffic control.
The captain, who asked to not be named, said his plane, which was bound for Narita, Japan, was far into Vietnamese airspace when he was asked to relay, using his plane's emergency frequency, to MH370 for the latter to establish its position, as the authorities could not contact the aircraft.
"We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace.
Mystery of missing jet recalls past disappearances
Vietnamese Air Force Col. Pham Minh Tuan uses binoculars on board a flying aircraft during a mission to search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in the Gulf of Thailand, Thursday, March 13, 2014. With no distress call, no sign of wreckage and very few answers, the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane is turning into one of the biggest aviation mysteries since Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is the latest example of a very rare event in aviation: a plane that vanishes.
With radar, radio traffic and other technology, planes that crash are usually found quickly. But sometimes searches can take days or weeks if the plane disappears over open ocean or remote and rugged land areas.
Since the dawn of the jet age in 1958, here are some other notable disappearances (not all were jets):
How to steal a Boeing 777: Bizarre theories gain traction as mystery of Flight MH370 deepens
Speculation Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 could have been stolen
Whenever a plane goes down, experienced aircraft investigators look at the general circumstances and mentally draw up a list of the most likely causes — not to leap to conclusions, but to prioritize lines of inquiry and organize competing hypotheses. As information comes in, it should be possible to eliminate those hypotheses one by one until at last a full understanding of the circumstances remains. The goal is to make sure that the problem will never again bring down an airliner. This philosophy works: Year by year, fewer commercial airliners are lost to accidents.
The downside is that, as likely sources of aircraft accidents are eliminated, what’s left behind are increasingly arcane and bizarre, once-in-a-million combinations of bad luck, incompetence, and malice. And the longer we go without any significant clues regarding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the more likely that its true cause will fall into that category.
For instance? Some airline pilots have begun to speculate that one of the flight crew might have intentionally caused the plane to disappear and flown off with it to an undisclosed location. This line of speculation, outlandish as it may sound, was only bolstered when it was reported Wednesday that investigators were actively pursuing the possibility that the plane had been diverted “with the intention of using it later for another purpose.”
Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Co-Pilot Smoked, Flirted with Teen Girls inside Cockpit in 2011; Behavior Questioned
The behavior of the 27-year-old co-pilot of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 has been questioned as it has emerged that he had once invited teenage girls inside the cockpit and smoked during the flight.
The incident took place in 2011 in an international flight. Jonti Roos, one of the South African tourists who were invited inside the cockpit, told Australia's Channel 9 that the pilots were smoking and were also posing for photos. The teenage girls stayed inside the cockpit for the entire duration of the flight.
Both smoking and passengers visiting the cockpit are strictly prohibited in most of the airlines, including Malaysia Airlines.
MH370: Co-pilot entertained women in cockpit on previous flight
A teenage tourist from South Africa has come forward to reveal that the co-pilot of the missing flight MH370 invited her and a teenage girlfriend to hang out in the cockpit during a flight from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur in 2011.
Ms Jonti Roos told Australia’s Channel Nine TV in an interview that aired yesterday (March 11) that she and her friend were spotted during check-in and were personally invited by Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, and the captain to spend the hour-long flight in the cockpit.
“We were standing in line at the boarding gate just with everybody else and the pilot and co-pilot walked past us and came back and asked us if we would like to sit with them in the cockpit during the flight. Obviously we said yes,” said Ms Roos, who studied at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and is now living in Melbourne.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 radar evidence suggests 'sabotage'
A crew member from the Royal Malaysian Air Force uses binoculars on board a Malaysian Air Force CN235 aircraft during a search and rescue operation to find the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, in the Straits of Malacca on March 13. (Samsul Said/Reuters)
Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Friday.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints — indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training — when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.
The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.
related:
- Key developments in Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 search
- Malaysia Airlines MH370: How to make a crisis worse
- How could Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 go off the radar?
- Malaysia Airlines affair raises security concerns over passport trafficking
- Seaplanes, subs, warships sweep ocean for missing plane
- Map: Malaysia Flight MH370 route, search area
- Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: What's needed to find it
- Malaysia Airlines: Friends of former Montreal couple await news
- Malaysia Airlines missing jet: A look at world's deadliest air disasters
Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Kidd and USS Pinckney are seen en transit in the Pacific Ocean in this U.S. Navy picture taken May 18, 2011. Kidd and Pinkney have been searching for the missing Malaysian airliner and are being re-deployed to the Strait of Malacca of Malaysia's west coast as new search areas are opened in the Indian Ocean, according to officials on March 13, 2014
Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlinesjetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday.
Analysis of the Malaysia data suggests the plane, with 239 people on board, diverted from its intended northeast route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing and flew west instead, using airline flight corridors normally employed for routes to the Middle East and Europe, said sources familiar with investigations into the Boeing 777's disappearance.
Two sources said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.
related:
read more
Malaysian Airlines Jet Left Data Trail for Hours After Disappearing
As search teams continue to look for the Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 that went missing on Saturday, people briefed on the investigation have told The Wall Street Journal that communications satellites received data “pings” from the jet for at least five hours after it disappeared from radar screens.
The pings gave the plane’s location, speed and altitude. The final ping was sent from over the water at what one of the people described as a “normal’ cruising altitude. As WSJ reports:
If the plane remained airborne for the entire time the pings were being sent, it could have flown more than 2.200 nautical miles from it’s last confirmed position over the Gulf of Thailand, the people familiar with the investigation said. The graphic below shows where the plane could have theoretically flown and which equipment on the plane could have sent data during the course of the flight.read more
Satellite Data
Reveal Route of Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane
Malaysia
Airlines missing jet transmitted its location repeatedly to
satellites over the course of five hours after it disappeared from
radar, people briefed on the matter said, as searchers zeroed in on
new target areas hundreds of miles west of the plane's original
course.
The satellites also
received speed and altitude information about the plane from its
intermittent "pings," the people said. The final ping was
sent from over water, at what one of these people called a normal
cruising altitude. They added that it was unclear why the pings
stopped.
One of the people, an industry official, said it was
possible that the system sending them had been disabled by someone on
board.
related:
Malaysia Air: When a Transponder Gets Switched Off
Flight 370’s Engines Ran Long After Contact Lost
read more
Malaysia rejects report plane flew on, Chinese photos
Malaysia on Thursday denied a media report that its missing airliner flew on for hours after last making contact, and said Chinese photos that raised hopes of a search breakthrough actually showed no wreckage.
"Those reports are inaccurate," Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said of a Wall Street Journal report that said US investigators suspected the plane had flown on.
The report said data automatically sent to the ground from the aircraft's Rolls-Royce engines suggested the Boeing 777 was in the air for four hours after its last contact with air traffic control at 1.30 a.m. Malaysian time.
read more
New US lead thrusts Malaysia jet search into Indian Ocean
The needle-in-a-haystack hunt for a missing Malaysian airliner spread to the vast Indian Ocean on Friday after the White House cited "new information" that it might have flown for hours after vanishing nearly seven days ago.
Multiple US media reports, citing US officials, said the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777's communication system continued to "ping" a satellite for a number of hours after it disappeared off radar with 239 people aboard, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
"It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
related:
Search for Malaysian plane: As it happened
Missing Malaysia Airlines plane search: As it happened
read more
MISSING MH370: Chinese site may show plane debris images
.webp)
Image from China's satellites showing the location where three objects were detected
Satellite images on a Chinese government website show suspected debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner floating off the southern tip of Vietnam, near the plane’s original flight path, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.
The revelation could provide searchers with a focus that has eluded them since the plane disappeared with 239 people aboard early Saturday.
The Xinhua report said the images from around 11 a.m. on Sunday appear to show “three suspected floating objects” of varying sizes, the largest about 24 meters (79 feet) by 22 meters (72 feet).
US ship joins shifted plane search focus
A US naval ship is headed from the Gulf of Thailand to the
Strait of Malacca as efforts to find a missing Malaysian airliner shift
focus.
The USS Kidd, a guided missile destroyer, has been taking
part in the near week-long search for Malaysia Airlines flight 370
along with another American destroyer and a P-3 Orion surveillance
aircraft.
'The Kidd is going to the Straits of Malacca and will be
searching in the western section of the strait at the request of the
Malaysian government,' an official told AFP news agency late on
Wednesday.
related: New leads move Malaysia plane search
read more
Details on ships, planes searching for missing jet
Nearly every navy with a presence in Southeast Asia is involved in the extensive search for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared early Saturday. Some details on the key responders and their capabilities
UNITED STATES: The U.S. Navy is easily the biggest and best equipped Navy in the Pacific and was fast to participate. Two San Diego-based destroyers have been searching areas designated by the Malaysian government. The USS Kidd searched the southwest section of the Gulf of Thailand before heading to the Strait of Malacca as of Thursday, according to 7th Fleet spokesman Cdr. William Marks. The USS Pickney searched the northeast area, between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before heading to Singapore for maintenance.
The Kidd's two HM-60R Seahawk helicopters flew sorties from dawn to dusk in search of debris. They can search a 400- to 600-square-nautical mile area during a typical 3½-hour sortie, depending on sea and weather conditions and the size of object it's trying to find. Its onboard sensors can detect small objects in the water, in addition to the crew using binoculars or the naked eye. The Seahawks also have forward-looking infrared cameras for night use.
related:
Malaysian 777: Engine data not tracked for hours, says source
Missing plane sent signals to satellite for hours
Malaysia: Report missing plane kept flying wrong
read more
MH370 searchers raise new questions over foul play as U.S. investigators treat disappearance as case of air piracy
An Indonesian Air Force officer draws a
flight pattern flown earlier in a search operation for the missing
Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, during a post-mission briefing at Suwondo
air base in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Thursday, March 13, 2014
Malaysia Airlines MH370 data suggests jet might have crashed into Indian Ocean. The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 jetliner kept flying after it
dropped off controllers’ radar screens, raising new questions about
whether foul play was involved, according to people familiar with data
gathered in the inquiry.
Aviation specialists investigating last week’s loss of Malaysia
Airlines Flight MH370 say evidence gathered so far suggests the plane
veered off its path toward Beijing and travelled west over Malaysia
toward the Andaman Sea, beyond the detection limits of the country’s
radars, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because
the probe is active.
ABC News, citing a senior Pentagon official, said the plane may have
crashed into the Indian Ocean. With no evidence of a mechanical failure
or pilot error, U.S. investigators are treating the disappearance as a
case of air piracy, though it remains unclear by whom, one person said. India’s search team has been asked to explore “very specific
coordinates in the Andaman Sea,” said Syed Akbaruddin, a spokesman for
the Indian foreign ministry, without elaborating on those coordinates
Missing plane sent signals to satellite for hours
Children read messages and well wishes
displayed for all involved with the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner
MH370 on the walls of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Thursday,
March 13, 2014 in Sepang, Malaysia. Planes sent Thursday to check the
spot where Chinese satellite images showed possible debris from the
missing Malaysian jetliner found nothing, Malaysia's civil aviation
chief said, deflating the latest lead in the six-day hunt. The hunt for
the missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 has been punctuated by false
leads since it disappeared with 239 people aboard about an hour after
leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing early Saturday. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
A Malaysia Airlines plane sent signals to a
satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication
that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, a U.S. official
briefed on the search said Thursday.
Six days after the plane with 239 people aboard
disappeared, Malaysian authorities expanded their search westward
toward India, saying the aircraft may have flown for several hours after
its last contact with the ground shortly after takeoff from Kuala
Lumpur for Beijing.
A string of previous clues about Flight MH370 have led nowhere.
"MH370 went completely silent over the open ocean," said Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. "This is a crisis situation. It is a very complex operation, and it is not obviously easy. We are devoting all our energies to the task at hand."
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Missing Malaysia plane sent signals to satellite for hours
A Malaysia Airlines plane sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, a U.S. official briefed on the search said Thursday.
Six days after the plane with 239 people aboard disappeared, Malaysian authorities expanded their search westward toward India, saying the aircraft may have flown for several hours after its last contact with the ground shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. A string of previous clues about Flight MH370 have led nowhere.
"MH370 went completely silent over the open ocean," said Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. "This is a crisis situation. It is a very complex operation, and it is not obviously easy. We are devoting all our energies to the task at hand."
read more
India Expands Plane Search to Include Part of Bay of Bengal
A string of previous clues about Flight MH370 have led nowhere.
"MH370 went completely silent over the open ocean," said Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. "This is a crisis situation. It is a very complex operation, and it is not obviously easy. We are devoting all our energies to the task at hand."
read more
Missing Malaysia plane sent signals to satellite for hours
A Malaysia Airlines plane sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing, an indication that it was still flying for hundreds of miles or more, a U.S. official briefed on the search said Thursday.
Six days after the plane with 239 people aboard disappeared, Malaysian authorities expanded their search westward toward India, saying the aircraft may have flown for several hours after its last contact with the ground shortly after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. A string of previous clues about Flight MH370 have led nowhere.
"MH370 went completely silent over the open ocean," said Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. "This is a crisis situation. It is a very complex operation, and it is not obviously easy. We are devoting all our energies to the task at hand."
read more
India Expands Plane Search to Include Part of Bay of Bengal
Malaysia Flight 370: New Clues: Hijacking Looks More Likely — Experts
As investigators expand the search area for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 to include the Indian Ocean, new clues are emerging in this baffling tragedy. Now experts are saying the plane’s mysterious disappearance is beginning to look more and more like a hijacking.
There’s one piece of the puzzle that investigators keep coming back to in this case, and that is why Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 stopped sending identifying transponder codes before it disappeared. Now some experts are saying that the most likely answer to that question is that the transponder was turned off manually — by hijackers.
While it’s possible a power failure could have turned the plane’s transponder off, the equipment uses so little power that it would have been one of the last things to shut down, says John Nance, a broadcast aviation analyst and veteran pilot
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Sabotage possibility on missing Malaysian jet
Source: Google Maps
Someone on board missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 may have shut down
communications systems deliberately, providing further evidence the
plane flew on for several hours India’s
Navy has opened a search zone in the Andaman Sea, west of Malaysia,
while the US Navy has deployed a ship to the Malacca Strait to
Malaysia’s south.
Sources close to the investigation said the two communications
systems on board the Malaysia Airlines jet were shut down separately,
more than 10 minutes apart, according to an American ABC News report. A data reporting system had been turned off at 1.07am while a
transponder was shut down at 1.21am. The source suggested this
information indicated the plane had continued to fly and had reached the
Indian Ocean.
The US Navy has sent the USS Kidd from the Gulf of Thailand to the Malacca Strait on the western side of the Malay Peninsula to an area hundreds of kilometres away from where the plane dropped off civilian radar.
read more
related:
MH370: Five Years On
MP Lim Wee Kiak Retracts Statement On MH370
Debris of MH370 found after 515 days
Zero Days To Locate Black Box of MH370
Search For Mystery Of MH370 Continues
Searching For The Disappearance of MH370
Flight MH370 Ended In The Southern Indian Ocean
Flight MH370: What's Known And What's Speculation
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 Goes Missing
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